Gakken

Gakken is a Japanese publishing company founded in 1946. In the 1970s, they began selling educational toys, books, magazines, and electronic kits. Their kits are known for their smart design and relative ease of use and have a large cult following both in Japan and the United States.

Decorate your walls with 10,000 bright stars with this Pinhole Planetarium Kit from Gakken's series of Science for Adults kits! The Pinhole...

Decorate your walls with 10,000 bright stars with this Pinhole Planetarium Kit from Gakken's series of Science for Adults kits! The Pinhole Planetarium uses a small light bulb and a micro-perforated dodecahedron to cast the stars, galaxies, and constellations of the northern hemisphere onto your walls. The stellar globe can be set to project the northern hemisphere night sky for any location, date, or time. The planetarium was designed using...

A Gakken kit best-seller, now available from the Adafruit shop: Make and play one of the world's oldest electronic musical instruments - the...

A Gakken kit best-seller, now available from the Adafruit shop: Make and play one of the world's oldest electronic musical instruments - the theremin! The theremin is an instrument that plays eerie, otherwordly tones based on the proximity of the players hands to metal antennas. The resulting interference is transformed into music! When assembled, the Mini-Theremin is a full-fledged musical instrument with a built-in speaker. While the...

Shredders unite! This handmade Mini Electric Guitar has a built-in amp and speaker. The strings on this 320mm guitar can be installed and tuned the...

Shredders unite! This handmade Mini Electric Guitar has a built-in amp and speaker. The strings on this 320mm guitar can be installed and tuned the same way as a normal sized guitar. The built-in amp and speaker output a powerful distortion sound, and an external amp can also be connected with a standard 1/4" jack for clearer & better tones. Even includes a pick that allows for easy playing! All that's needed to assemble this kit is...

This Twin Cylinder Steam Engine Kit has everything you need to make your own old school V-type steam engine. This kit is a great way to both learn...

This Twin Cylinder Steam Engine Kit has everything you need to make your own old school V-type steam engine. This kit is a great way to both learn about how steam engines work and brush up on your mechanics. It's perfect for makers, train enthusiasts, or a classroom demonstration for a lesson on James Watt. No batteries required for this kit, it uses a small flame and principles of gas expansion and contraction to create motion! There's...

Theo Jansen's Strandbeest walks around leisurely, propelled naturally by the wind flowing through its turbines. Now you can build and enjoy your...

Theo Jansen's Strandbeest walks around leisurely, propelled naturally by the wind flowing through its turbines. Now you can build and enjoy your very own miniature version - a small Strandbeest that glides gracefully across surfaces without electricity or batteries. The Strandbeest is a kinetic, wind-propelled sculpture that was designed by physicist/artist Theo Jansen. While the original was designed for the beach (strandbeest is Dutch for...

Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph the best." - Thomas Edison While we prefer the incandescent lightbulb, we're willing to call...

Of all my inventions, I liked the phonograph the best." - Thomas Edison While we prefer the incandescent lightbulb, we're willing to call the phonograph a close second. And with this kit from Gakken, you can now feel like Edison himself by building your own miniature phonograph! This phonograph can record and play about fifty seconds of sound onto a wax candle - mimicking the original wax cylinder used. This build-it-yourself ...

Ever wish you were a member of The Jetsons? While you can't travel to the year 2062, you can buy your very own desktop robot vacuum cleaner and...

Ever wish you were a member of The Jetsons? While you can't travel to the year 2062, you can buy your very own desktop robot vacuum cleaner and at least feel like you've been transported to a futuristic utopia of tidy tabletops. It changes directions when it bumps into objects and senses any edge so you can leave it alone at your desk, table, or workspace and come back to a nice, clean surface. There's no English manual so this...

Experience a favorite feudal Japanese time-piece by building your own beautiful dual-foliot, Edo-period Japanese mechanical clock! Edo-period...

Experience a favorite feudal Japanese time-piece by building your own beautiful dual-foliot, Edo-period Japanese mechanical clock! Edo-period Japanese clocks were unique mechanical clocks that adapted Western clock-making techniques to tell traditional Japanese time. This kit from Gakken has two foliots - one for the day hours and one for the night hours. The front and rear foliots switch between 6 AM and 6 PM automatically. A foliot is part of...

The spiritual successor to The Mini Strandbeest, this kit uses physicist/artist Theo Jansen's technique to create an elegant walking rhinoceros!...

The spiritual successor to The Mini Strandbeest, this kit uses physicist/artist Theo Jansen's technique to create an elegant walking rhinoceros! This rhinoceros is propelled in the same way as the The Strandbeest - without electricity or batteries and only by the power of the wind. Simply put together the kit, place the rhino on a flat surface, add a fan or some blowing air, and watch as it walks gracefully and fluidly forward. It's a...

Delve into the traditional Japanese art of origami and produce softly lit origami paper. You can make a lampshade using either a square-folded shade...

Delve into the traditional Japanese art of origami and produce softly lit origami paper. You can make a lampshade using either a square-folded shade or a polygonal shape and then switch between different color lights! Each of the three LED colors can be dimmed individually or set to auto-fade. The concept and design of the AKARI Origami came about from a collaboration between Japanese artist Hiroyuki Moriwaki and the origami designer Miyuki...

The Delta Twister is a build-it-yourself lightweight flying machine that's perfect for both amateur flight enthusiasts and amateur makers. The...

The Delta Twister is a build-it-yourself lightweight flying machine that's perfect for both amateur flight enthusiasts and amateur makers. The Delta Twister flies either by a wound up rubber band or a small electric motor that propels its dual-plastic wings to flap rapidly through the air. This kit requires two AAA batteries that aren't included but we sell them in the Adafruit store. No special tools are needed and there's no...

The spiritual successor to The Mini Strandbeest, this kit uses physicist/artist Theo Jansen's technique to create an elegant walking robot! This bipedal robot is propelled in the same way as the The Strandbeest - without electricity or batteries and only by the power of the wind. Simply put together the kit, place the robot on a flat surface, add a fan or some blowing air, and watch as it walks gracefully and fluidly forward. It's a fun,...

The Gakken Twin Lens Reflex Camera is perfect for anyone who loves photography or electronics. This highly portable camera, when assembled, has a...

The Gakken Twin Lens Reflex Camera is perfect for anyone who loves photography or electronics. This highly portable camera, when assembled, has a unique appearance with a pair of vertically arranged lenses. The upper lens is used to set the view, angle, and focus the camera, while the bottom lens is used to take the actual photographs. Use any 35mm color/slide/b&w film (not included!) The kit also includes stickers to decorate your camera...

Gakken is back with a large mechanical hand! The Gakken Auto-Writing Machine is the new monthly kit from the folks over at Gakken....

Gakken is back with a large mechanical hand! The Gakken Auto-Writing Machine is the new monthly kit from the folks over at Gakken. It's a hand that, when you stick a pen into its holder, will write either the Japanese character for 'A', a peace sign, or the name 'Tosa.' The auto-writer works by having three plates that rotate and are caught by two sliders that then pull the spring-loaded hand to draw the desired...

Learn circuit basics with these fun electronic blocks! These 46 blocks contain enough transistors, resistors, wireless microphones, and electronics buzzers to run up to 150 different experiments. They require no special tools and allow you to build anything from a lie detector to a diode tester. There's no English manual so this kit's quite a bit more challenging than the other Gakken kits. The pictures are fairly simple to follow,...

Make music, write music, and sing along with the world's most famous virtual vocaloid pop-star in a ribbon synthesizer. Introducting the ...

Make music, write music, and sing along with the world's most famous virtual vocaloid pop-star in a ribbon synthesizer. Introducting the Pocket Miku by Gakken ! This 16-key NSX-39 keyboard comes with a stylus for playing and a 3.5mm/0.125" output. There's a vibrato option, octave control, as well as volume and vowel control for 5 different sounds: A - E - I - O - U. Using Gakken's midi web-app you can input...

Pianists? No! Pannists? Yes! Educate yourself on the sounds of Trinidad and Tobago with Gakken's Steel Drum Kit. Put together a four-note...

Pianists? No! Pannists? Yes! Educate yourself on the sounds of Trinidad and Tobago with Gakken's Steel Drum Kit. Put together a four-note steelpan with an 1/8th inch output and ride the soundwaves down to the Caribbean islands. The kit includes the drum, a pickup that magnetizes to the bottom of the drum, a stand for the drum, mallets, and an 1/8th inch out. Amplifier and batteries not included! Like many of our Gakken kits, the...